Court of Reason; 5; Webster's Third: Is English Changing or Being Corrupted

National Educational Television presents Court of Reason with Professor Robert K. Merton, Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. This evening, the issue in question is Webster's third. Is English merely changing or being corrupted? Examining arguments with me are Martin Levin, Editor of the Phoenix Nest in the Saturday Review and of the recent book, Five Boyhoods, and Gore Vidal, novelist, critic, and author of the Broadway hit plays, a visit to a small planet and the best man.

Immediately after its long awaited appearance in the fall of 1961, Webster's third international dictionary was greeted with a storm of ridicule and indignation. For quarter of a century, the second edition had been considered the foremost authority on English usage in the United States. It was startling, therefore, that the new work was charged with contributing to debasement of the language. The editors of Webster's third, however, have resolutely defended their departures from the second edition. Scholars, prominent in linguistics, have lent their support to what they call a realistic approach to a living language inevitably subject to change. Once again, there emerges the difficult problem of distinguishing between the corruption of the language, resulting from the lowering

of standards and normal change resulting from growth and the passage of years. Advocates of differing points of view on the subject of American English as reflected in Webster's third are Dwight McDonald, film critic for Esquire, staff writer for the New Yorker, author of the forthcoming book against the American grain, and Patrick E. Kilburn, associate professor of English at Union College. The two advocates will briefly state their opposing positions, and then our colloquy will begin. First, Dwight McDonald. Well, as you say, Dr. Burton, Webster's third has been severely criticized in the late press. Life, the New York Times, Hoppers, Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Review, and my own review in the New Yorker. The only two favor of your views I've seen in the academic press have been by Dr.

Sled and Dr. Kilburn, my opponent, the mate of another. But I think that a storm, as you said, a storm of ridicule and complaint is a two emotional way to put it. If I may speak for my fellow lay critics, I'd say that our common note is that the new Webster is a bad dictionary because it is abdicated one of the two functions of an unabridged dictionary. One function is to include every word currently in common use, whether it is improper, vulgar, slang, or just nearly mistaken. And this function, I must admit, Webster III, admibly fulfills. We're all very grateful. The other function is to act as an authority to discriminate between what is correct and incorrect usage. Of course, as of the time it's published because these things change constantly,

and between what is slang and what is standard English. Here is where I think all the critics find fall. As I shall presently show, the editors of Webster III have done their best deliberately not to discriminate and not to rule as authorities. They have behaved so not from laziness or timidity or ignorance, which you might think would be the reasons. On the contrary, because of the most serious and most highly principled scientific approach, they haven't entirely succeeded. Because in Webster III, I'm sorry to say from that point of view, there are still great many discriminations between, for instance, slang and standard English. But they've done their best as of 1961. Maybe by 1984, I will have this ultimate scientific and non-authoritarian dictionary, in which there will be no status labels at all. A status label, of course, is a label such as

a non-standard or slang, which implies that it isn't used in the most educated circles. Now, let me stipulate, as the lawyers say with my opponent, that I agree that language changes constantly. Don't let us have an argument about that. And this is a good thing or whether or a good thing or not, it's something that's going to happen. As Carlisle said to Margaret Fuller when she said, I accept the universe. He said, the God met him, you'd better. And we have to accept the fact that language changes. And furthermore, even I will admit that the best way of determining which changes are for the good and which for the bad are not Latin and logic. But the point about Webster's story, as against Webster's second, is that many, if not most, of the words which in Webster's second were given pejorative labels, such as substandard, slang,

and so on, appear as perfectly normal standard English and Webster's story. And this is what all the fuss is about. Now, the reason for this is because there has taken place since 1934, when Webster's second was published, a revolution in study of English grammar and usage, which is a doctrine called structural linguistics, which is probably an advance in a scientific study of language, but had very bad effect on both the teaching of English and the making of dictionaries, neither which I think are scientific pursuits, since they involve or rather should involve value judgments. They can draw on science, but the most important decisions can't be made on scientific grounds, just as in the so-called social sciences, Dr. Merton. I hope you don't. Now, this scientific revolution has meshed gears as played in with a tendency towards permissiveness in the name of democracy that is the base in our language and by making it less

precise and therefore less effective, either as literature or as communication. It's felt the very word discrimination, for instance, now has a rather Jim Crow flavor and it's felt that it's snobbish to insist on making discriminations about usage. It's also assumed that true democracy means that the majority is right. I think this feeling is sentimental and this assumption is unfounded. We've raised a number of lively issues and we'll want to return to them before long. Mr. Kilburn. It would seem plain beyond any argument that the users of a language are those who fix the meaning of a word. After all, there is no inherent significance in any particular sequence of letters or sounds. If there were, of course, all people would speak one language. Nor is there any inherent respectability or raffishness in any particular sequence. A word is known by the company it is allowed to keep and words are always in company. They're not like stones which have

an existence apart from humans. Some one is always using them in some context. That context and the other contexts in which a word has been used determine its status. Moreover, any living language continually changes. New words are continually being invented or old ones and given new significations to meet the demands placed upon the language by its speakers. This is a fact of human existence as much as its birth or death. No one has found any way to stop a language from changing until there are no more speakers of the language. Then it is a dead language like classical Greek or Latin. Finally, the spoken language is the language. Out of this realization stems the frequent agitation for spelling reform in order to bring the representation of the language into alignment with the language itself. In the Fuhrer over Webster's third, it has been asserted or implied again and again that the third represents a radical change from the lexical practices of the past. This contention is simply not borne out by the facts. In 1999, the editors of the first

edition of Webster's new international dictionary said, it is the function of a dictionary to state the meanings in which words are in fact used not to give expression to the editors' opinions as to what their meanings should be. Or again, it is implied that the third's reliance upon accumulated citations of actual usage is new. Yet Johnson's dictionary in 1755 was a citation dictionary, as was no Webster's in 1828. The great Oxford English Dictionary, in Mr. McDonald's own words, a unique masterpiece of historical research was preeminently a citation dictionary. Finally, in 1934, the editors of Webster's second edition say in their preface, preface. Definitions, to be adequate, must be written only after an analysis of citations. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the reason for the fundamental and thorough soundness of the Merriam Webster Dictionary is that it is a citation dictionary, end quote. Therefore, the best tradition of all the great dictionaries of English demands that

lexicographer must base his assessment of the meaning and social respectability of a word firmly upon actual examples of usage. He must not obtrude his own personal opinions. Much of the criticism has been focused upon the third's permissiveness. When has a word achieved enough status to be considered one of the common words so that it may be entered in the dictionary without comment? The critics all admit that the question is most difficult, but they pontificate on the decisions of the third edition as if it were not at all difficult. Moreover, something very important has been happening in our language in the 20th century. As long ago as 1934, the pronunciation editor of the second edition noted the trend in the best public speaking away from the formal and toward the cultivated colloquial. By dropping colloquial from their list of status labels, the editors of the third have recognized that there is no proper separation between standard and colloquial language anymore. They apparently shared the feeling of other lexicographers that it was misleading,

especially to the naive, who are most in need of guidance and who are likely to feel that some stigma attaches to the label colloquial and strive to avoid as incorrect or as of a low level all words so marked. Perhaps, though, the great hullabaloo over the third can serve some useful purpose. Perhaps the general public will have gained enough linguistic sophistication from the attacks of the critics to take a reasonable attitude toward dictionaries, which are accurate but not infallible guides to good usage. And in fact, no responsible exocographer has ever claimed infallibility. Despite repeated disclaimers from Dr. Johnson on down, the public, especially the American public, has been all too ready to thrust it upon them. We have entered too far into the world of science to be satisfied with the belief in word magic. Let us have done with such mumbo jumbo. Let us learn to look at dictionaries as human and therefore fallible records. At least for a while yet, the third will probably be known as a liberal dictionary. But is this a cause for lamentation, for weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth? Not at all.

It is to say that this dictionary, like all other human works, has its limitations and its point of view. But let us not for that reason throw out the baby with the bathwater. This is and will continue to be the completest record of the American language as it is written and spoken in the 1960s. Thank you, Mr. Kilburn. Before we begin questioning the advocates, we should perhaps remind ourselves of the way we plan to proceed. The panel in particular should remember that this is a court of reason, not a court of rhetoric. We don't want to generate the noise of controversy for its own sake. Instead, we want to search out the strengths and the weaknesses of each case as it is presented by the advocate. We take no side so that we can better probe each side. Perhaps I should report before we begin the questioning that I was prepared to disqualify myself as

a member of this impartial panel. Since I find that I am listed in Webster's third as the consultant in sociology, Mr. McDonald. Well, I have several things in it too. I mean, not it's something, but I finally decided to remain on the panel nevertheless for two reasons. But didn't you know that you were listed? I didn't until the other day. You did not know it. And I decided that perhaps I could remain reasonably impartial because in the first place, I had found it necessary to resign as consultant long before the third edition was completed. And so I can't claim either credit nor assume responsibility for any of the sociological definitions. And secondly, I assume that we won't be discussing the technical vocabulary in the dictionary. And so having promptly reinstated myself on the panel, I should like to begin the questioning of

Dwight McDonald. Oh, you suggested Mr. McDonald that the Webster's third falls short primarily because it refuses to discriminate between correct and incorrect usage. It advocates that responsibility. Would you care to tell us what you propose as the criteria of acceptable English usage? No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't like to tell you that because I think it is extremely difficult, subjective and even artistic problem, which for which no rules can be drawn up. It depends entirely on the people that you have on your editorial board. In fact, even Dr. Gov, the editor, has and one of his more relaxed moments has admitted this that making a dictionary is an artistic thing. But I would like to tell you, if I might, some of the reasons that I think that Dr. Kilburn is quite incorrect when he says that there isn't any great difference between number two and three

and this respect and just a couple of examples. The confusion between the word nauseous and nauseated, for instance, which I won't go into, I assume everybody in this audience knows it. Number two, labels nauseous in a sense of experience nausea as incorrect. Number three does not. This is a common confusion. Deprecate and depreciate, unexceptional and unexceptionable. These are things which two makes a distinction between and three does not and above all this terribly common thing, this interested and uninterested, if you can believe it, three gives this interested as a synonym of uninterested. Now, the reason for objecting of these confusions are obviously won't go into them, but this study makes a great difference between one of the between two and three and bears out my point that two constantly makes discriminizing which three

doesn't make and the last and most horrible example is that that awful conjunctive like is labeled by two illiterate and incorrect, which is true. And three accepts it as standard and gives the two citations. One of them is from art, art, link letter, typical of some of three citations, and it is he wore his clothes like he was afraid of getting date on him, end quote. No, I'm sorry, that's the St. Peter's, that's the other one, that's the St. Peter's big flower to independent. That's the second quote. The first quote is art, link letter, he says, impromptu programs where they ask questions much like I do on the air. Well, Mr. McDonald without disagreeing or unnecessarily agreeing with any of your examples, would you want to tell us a little more about the reasons why you accept the verdict of the

second edition and find the judgment of the third unacceptable? Let me give you one more example. Take the word unique. Now, in the second edition, Mr. St. Peter is a negative, meaning single soul, the only one of its kind, and I'm sure that you would accept that definition. In the third, however, there is an indication that it can be treated comparatively, that one can say that something is less unique as the Irving Babet Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, Harry Levin puts it, or one can say that something is more unique as the novelist, Dorothy Canfield Fisher put it, or one can say that something is most unique as the playwright author Miller put it, and understandably one might add in speaking of Marilyn Monroe. Now, if people of that caliber use this language, do you find that the

dictionary is unjustified in treating it as acceptable usage? No, on the question of unique and even perhaps the question of enthusiasm, although I would myself not use either one of them, but enthusiasm is a fact. In this sense, I think we perhaps have to give up the battle, but as A.S.W. Fowler says in his modern English usage, the thing is that you can fight against them, and then all right, then you have to finally give way, of course, obviously. But you should pull up a fight against these kinds of things, and certainly, like for as strikes me as the mark of an illiterate person, and may I add that this is something quite important, not just from a high-barred point of view, but from the point of view of a career or a job as Bernard Shaw said, there are certain kinds of uses of, if a person has a certain kind of use of language, it will debar him forever from any job getting more than three pounds a week, and he

was quite right, and this is still true. This is a social, as you must admit, real as yourself, a social question as well. Go ahead, or I was thinking, I tend to agree with Mr. McDonnell. Notice something, Mr. Kilburn said, he used the word human as a noun. Now, I've always thought he was for something other humans choose to do something or other. Now, I've always thought that human is an adjective, it's not a noun, and it always must be human being, if you're going to refer to people. It is no more a noun to my ear. I was speaking of style than pretty, or she was a pretty or a fair. Now, I wonder, what is the ruling, whether Mr. McDonnell has a comment on this, is human now become a noun just simply through a Christian grammar, too well, Mr. Vidal. That doesn't have anything to do with English. It's true of perhaps of Latin, but not of English. Well, I think that it's more complicated than that. It's also to a thing that these things,

we're really often on a side track, the question has been divided into what criteria you can use to authoritative pronounce on the language at this present time. That's a different point than the point that I raised, which is that any dictionary, including this one, must pronounce on the language. You see what I mean? I mean, it's true. It's very difficult now, but you have to do it. You agree with this? You have to pronounce authoritatively? I've just been bursting about one thing. Now, I do not consider you illiterate, but you just said these kind of things. That's been one of my few words. Obviously, your usage is good. Sure. Not really obvious, but we have two advocates who not only have a post points of view, but are happy in expressing them. If we can continue with the questioning of Mr. McDonnell, then we'll turn to Mr. Kilburn. I wanted to ask a question, excuse me, of Mr. McDonnell. You said that it isn't Latin and logic that affects change. That was interesting to me.

No, I didn't take it. I thought it should not affect change. It has affected change in the past. What is the index of change, and if not Latin and logic? I think it's a combination of structural linguistics with the H.W. Fowler's modern English usage. But isn't that based on Latin and logic to a great extent? No, no. Fowler is not. Fowler had a very sensitive ear to what's going on today, really, and he was not a school mom or a patent. He's fairly consistent, though, isn't he? Yes, but I think Fowler was the best in between persons. I'm not in favor of the patents at all. I'm not in favor either of the extreme structural linguistics. I think you have to. Then you want to throw it up to taste, is that right? More or less. More or less. Yes, and it depends on who's doing it, of course. But, may I just make one point about this authority business that Dr. Kilburn seems to be horrified that I make this point, but I'm wondering if you've seen an advertisement in a

Saturday Review of Literature for October 6th last, in which I've kind of the number of times that either the word authority or the concept of authority is used. This is a full-page advertisement. Only the new Maring Webster on a bridge puts you in your family in command of today's English. That's the first use, authoritative. Second, authoritative to assure your philanthropist and correct use of words. This great new language authority, authority again, remains as authoritative. The trusted word authority for you and your family. This is pathetic, you know. Their advertising is to get the suckers. As if it were an authoritative addiction, I pulled off Dr. Gov, of course, said addiction should be descriptive and not prescriptive. I rejected the whole idea of authority as you do, too. Now, this kind of advertisement, I think the Federal Fag Commission should look into it. Part from the content of the advertisements, going back both to the dictionary and what it reflects, Mr. McDonald, you see it as the task,

one of the tasks of an unabridged dictionary, to oppose certain changes in the meanings assigned to words, in the changes in the pronunciation of words. Oppose them, how do you mean, opposed? Oppose them, if, in the judgment of the editors, they don't conform to the good taste of the editors. Yes, yes. I think so. Obviously, you have to give way at a certain point. But I'm not clear when do you give way. Well, that's a question of tact and taste again. You can't make moves for this. It's not a scientific business. Dean Zwift, for instance, was very much opposed to a lot of words that have become common, usually like mob and bully and so on. All right, he was also opposed to other things like hype for hyper-conductor, which have been lost and all kinds of contractions, which have been gone down. So, I don't see, there's no. So, what you're arguing for, in fact, is editorial staff with better standards of taste.

Just so you say. The more negative standards of cause of added people, I think that the trouble with Dr. Gov and his colleagues is that they were much too systematic and scientific and they didn't use any common sense in editing this dictionary. They went right down the line as much as they could, dead too. And they made mistakes, which wouldn't have been made by any of us here, with some possibly one exception. Thank you, Mr. McConnell. We'll return to you in a few minutes. Let's turn to the remarks of Patrick Kilburn and Mr. Vidal, would you start the question? Well, I'll first turn to you. It's much the same thing about people of Caliber, and then you named a number of people who had used most unique, used unique as comparative. People of Caliber, in speech, tend to make mistakes, which are not necessarily, should not go in the book. I remember once out at Los Angeles during the convention, three of us were arguing which one of us should tell

the then Senator Kennedy to stop saying between you and I. Now, according to the new permissive school, why have enough people say between you and I? It is right. Mr. Kilburn, is that the position you take? I think right is irrelevant. It's not a matter of rightness. It's a matter of whether or not the society places some sort of stigma upon this usage. If they do, then obviously the person who uses this between you and I, suffers some sort of loss. But if he doesn't, then it eventually becomes perfectly standard. Well, wouldn't you say that there was in language, and perhaps one of the things we're trying to get at, is the sloppiness with which it is generally used, and it is generally taught. Now, let's give us a sentence that often haunts me. None of the wives were happy. Now, this line, the use of the verb were, in the plural, is what I would say 99% of the people would

say, including us at moments, we lose it. I don't think any writer should ever write none of the wives were happy, because it's illogical. You're going against the science of the language. None means not one, which is singular. Not one of the wives was happy. Now, if you go against what is the basic intention and logic of your own language, then you're getting into that mad sphere of education in which children don't learn the syllables of words, they recognize whether it looks like a cat or a rat on a page. So, we're coming back again to standards. If you're dictionary, and I agree entirely with your point, and Mr. McDonald too, that it is the most inclusive dictionary and first rate in that sense, but when it comes to authority, to saying which is correct usage, then just don't say, well, you know, the field is open, and you put it up to a vote. Well, you could use Alexander Pope for your citation on none. Tis with our judgments as our watches. None go just alike yet each

believes his own, and this is exactly the point and issue here about dictionaries and taste and language. Tis with our judgments as our watches. None go just alike yet each believes his own, and you belabor the dictionary for not enshrining yours or mine or the other. It isn't enshrining, it's just naming. Just saying, look, the logic is that this is a singular subject, and they are now using a plural use of the verb, and there's no question on this. Now, don't say, if enough people want to do it that way, why, why, then all right, nobody's going to put them in jail, but the dictionary should say, look, this is sensible. No, correct. Ask yourself, would you, in writing a novel, say, use none is, I don't think you would. You have two fine as an ear for the language. Here is something else again. Yes, but that's exactly the point. That's English. That's not, you're applying logic, which doesn't have anything to do with it. The language itself has its own logic, which is not. Well, you can't. You wouldn't use it not anyway without identifying not one

of what. Well, you could come as a second clause in a sentence. Mr. Kilburn, aren't you saying that the dictionary should endorse the tendency toward a lovingly use of language toward the breaking down of discriminations toward the acceptance of luring previously precise words? Let's go back for a moment to an example that was raised here earlier. The Webster's third acknowledges this interestedness and this interested as now meaning a lack of interest. And so has broken down this longstanding difference between this interested and uninterested. Now, if I report that this panel sitting here is disinterested, I would very much prefer not to be understood as saying we weren't interested in what Mr. McDonald or you were saying.

Right, right. I'm no longer able to say that. That word has been stolen from me by the dictionary. The dictionary didn't do it. No, no, that is a very interesting case. Disinterested in the sense of uninterested is a very interesting case and it's an illustration of what you find when you begin to probe into the whole field of lexicography. For example, you start with Johnson, this interested, uninterested. Johnson lists it without comment in the sense of uninterested. No, Webster doesn't make any distinction at all. In fact, he says uninterested, indifferent, free from self-interest, not as separate definitions, but one definition. You come down to the OED, the OED lists it, but then it has a questionable obsolete. And then its first site is Dunn's Biathenatos. And then in the supplement in 1933, you were told to delete the obsolete label and then they'll follow three citations from 1928.

Webster's one calls it obsolete, obviously following the lead of the OED. Webster two lists without comment. Then I thought I'd caught Mr. McDonald in a mistake. Apparently Webster two suffered a hardening of the linguistic arteries because in the 1957 issue, which was the one you used, it's marked now rare, as you say in your original review. But in the 1940 issue, which I looked it up in first, it doesn't have any label at all. I checked it three times to make sure. And then I finally happened to check on the 1957 issue and it says now rare. Now, the new world dictionary, college dictionary is listed as colloquial. The new collegiate dictionary, the sister dictionary of the Webster's third lists it as an hour rare. The American college dictionary lists it as US colloquial. Now, you have all this range right here within the last few years. Now, how can you

belabor a dictionary for coming to this kind of decision when other people, you know, disinterested, honest people working as best they can come to all these wide decisions? You understand, Mr. Kilburn, the contrary to all appearances. The three of us sitting here are simply raising questions. I'm not advocating opinions on occasion that might have been lost to view. And I want to go back then to the basic question, which I think we are putting to you. What do you see as the criteria to be used other than taking an effect, taking a vote by amassing citations and then deciding which of these usages are relatively frequent and which infrequent? Should there be any discrimination among the sources of these citations? Or does every usage have an equal weight in the compilation of a dictionary? No, clearly enough. There are some noses count more than others. Obviously, Mr. MacDonald's

counts very heavily. He bears a very large responsibility for the state of the language. Now, he has cited no less than 40 times in the new theory. Oh, you want me to read them to you? No, no, no, no. Not this evening, Mr. Kilburn. Not this evening. All right. Well, there are 40 times where he has cited. No, obviously, Mr. MacDonald is a very literate. Let me ask you a loaded question. Isn't the object that the dictionary sets forth as that it claims it has self-defeating? Now, the third claims that it uses spoken English as an index of not correctness but of what is standard? One of them. It has dropped the colloquial because now colloquial language is used in writing. Right. And in the course of attempting to collect spoken English, it includes a lot of things that might have been called slang or whatever.

Now, this so-called spoken English may have been spoken when the dictionary was germinated, or may have been spoken in the circle in which the people move in Springfield, Massachusetts, but most of it seems to be obsolete by the time the dictionary has come out. For example, stifflycated, I have never heard anyone use that for a drunk. But the word, the word stone is very popular and they define that as throwing stones at someone. Now, Wuktidu and a word of that's a Hutonani are offered as words, but gas in the sense of a sensational or an exciting event isn't even mentioned. So what seems to me that in an effort to be perhaps topical, I should put it this way, don't you think, in an effort to become topical, the dictionary has actually become more obsolete than the one that preceded it by being so attempting to be so racy, it's become quite square and in many cases completely out of date.

Any dictionary is obsolete from the time it's published, but one that tries to be so current has a better chance, wouldn't you say? Well, when you bring up individual cases, I can't answer them for them because obviously I don't know the dictionary, neither does Dr. Goh. I haven't said that it's not a one-man dictionary. And once you start tracing these things down, you find some very interesting things, as for example, the disinterested, uninterested. You look in for the transpire in the sense of a curve. But wouldn't you say that's the fault of the citations that aren't linked better as a poor source of even, you could have cited John Keats as the new, as the new collegiate does. I prefer John Keats to write linked better. It's accepted in a perfectly standard usage in the sense of, no wait, in the sense of which the verb is understood. He roared like a bull.

Now, of course, yes, but this is different. These are in which the verb is not a said. Mr. Kilburn, let's take a few examples. We have a use of like with a verb, the hipster who was drowning who shouted like help. This reliance on spoken English, but the spoken English is drawn from printed citations, isn't it? Large. Now, this is my own opinion. I've never even been to the Merriam Webster. Webster's three treats the word jerk, that jerk, those jerks, as good standard English. It treats wise up as good standard English, and it gives authority. Now, interestingly enough, the authority for jerk as a part of acceptable English usage is none other than James Gould

Cousins, who some would consider a reasonably cultivated man, but the citation from which that is taken reads as follows, and I think this specific case may put the general question to you. Cousins writes, those jerks who don't know anything outside their rank and serial number, and this is drawn from a piece of dialogue, and is not Cousins speaking, but he's trying to recapture the slang of a particular situation. Now, that's spoken English to be sure to consider a just wise decision to cite it. Well, I am sure that they didn't, I'm reasonably sure, that they didn't enter it only on that basis, that is, that one usage. As my understanding of it is, the dictionary uses these citations in an attempt to indicate the general tone. Obviously, there are so many different

levels of standard, that it is impossible for a dictionary to devise, or it has not been done yet, to devise any way of labeling accurate. Why eliminate distinctions then? But it's not eliminating distinctions. If you say there are levels of standard, and they eliminate colloquial as a distinction, that's an elimination. Well, colloquial is the most widely misunderstood label that they use, and my feeling is that this was misleading. I have tried this on classes of collied seniors, not a lot of, they don't use colloquial, I thought they dropped that line. They dropped colloquial. Why couldn't they use thematic or bad usage or a standard role, but not, not, not considered simply good style. I think we're coming to, I mean, how many here were they substandard, but substandard? No, that's going to, if Jerkis is now standard, we might take a vote.

This is right to the point of what you just said, Dr. Martin. There are two examples, and they were a horse as a verb. One of them is a Norman Mailer. I never horse around much with the women, and another one is from JD Salinger, who says I horse around quite a lot just to keep from getting bored. Now, I haven't looked up these quotations unlike you, not being a scholar, but I would guess that since both Mailer and Salinger are extremely good stylists, and quite aware of the nuances of this, I would guess that either they're using these quite deliberately as slang, or else they're in quotation marks, as you point out. Salinger, quotation is a whole-than-call field, says. The whole book is a quotation. Well, then this is absurd to use this as a reason for accepting horse around as a verb as standard. This is lunacy. This is the only citation. It's a flywheel. Since you have the floor, Mr. Donald, why don't we give it to you? I would like to

continue, then, with some questions directed at your observations, and once again, you may assume that I'm agreeing with you, but if so, it's only accidentally. Not by intention, but that's one thing. Now, I still would like to get you to say a little more about your view that it ultimately comes down to a matter of taste, agreed that that is so. How do you see a dictionary being put together? It's to say... Well, I can't give you, as I said, it's not an unscientific business. It's an artistic business. But it seems to me that, well, I'll take off from something that Dr. Kilben said in a defensive Webster third, and in fact, a tack on my review of it. He said, there is a widespread belief among both primitive and non-pimitive people that language

is somehow mystical, if not sacrosanct. To these people, all changes are the basement and corruption that must be battled up to the depth. Now, another quote. Of course, he met me, although I don't believe that, but it's about change, as you know. But I do believe, and I insist, in fact, as you charge, that language is mystical, if not sacrosanct, I accept it. Language arises more passion, even than religion. I would say judging from reviews I've done of Webster's third as against the revised version of the Bible. And I can see some reasons why. This is the point, perhaps, that will come out about language. First of all, it's one aspect of our culture that everybody must learn, because even illiterate people have to learn how to talk. Secondly, people, therefore, feel a proprietary interest in language, because it tells them who they are, because it connects them with their past. Thirdly, I've point I've made already, that language is very important, as a way of establishing one's social status. And I showed it to think of the terrible effects

that will come. If some ambitious young apprentice uses Webster's third in order to get a job, I mean, he'll say eight, for instance. Well, that's probably standard, but he won't get the job. I don't think. Fourthly, every person's speech is slightly different from everybody else. And again, this is one of the few cultural aspects of life. Everyone is conscious of, and everybody has a special feeling about this. Be it in fifth and last, some of us love the English language, and therefore, fight against certain usages, which seem to us corrupt and debasing. And of course, we may be wrong. A script was wrong, and about some things, and right about other things. But I think it's good that some people care enough about language to do this. And it's the job of teachers and dictionary makers, it seems to me, to care enough about it to do this. I would only say that Mr. McDonald has put the case eloquently for civilization, and I think perhaps, Mr. McDonald, aren't you saying that we would all be happier with

a dictionary? Had there been perhaps a different committee simply sitting to select by their ear or by their authorities, what was good usage and what was style? I think it comes down to that rather than the eclectic side of it, which is good. Yes, I think almost any committee of reasonably intelligent, cultivated people, including Dr. Gove, who is that? I know I might talk to him. He's a perfectly literate person. But I think the trouble is that Dr. Gove was bemused by this scientific doctrine of structural linguistics, and he would have done much better if he hadn't been this way at all, and just been an opportunist. Finally, language is a science, not an art, like so many things, including psychology and social sciences. I mean science is an art, not a, I mean, not language is an art. It is not, finally. Yeah, not a science. No, I think on that note, we'll thank Mr. McDonald, and now we have a few minutes left, gentlemen, to review the arguments that have been developed

by the advocates. Mr. Vidal, what would you single out in the observations of Mr. Killburn that you're prepared to find acceptable? Oh, that, when he defends, now as I say, I haven't got much beyond art bark under the a's and the dictionary, but I have looked through it. It's a very, it's 2,500 pages. But I think that when he makes the point, is that not they had a judge, what is being said in general, I think that's the dictionary is quite a success. It certainly is full of words. I just simply take exception to what we've been doing all evening, is that I don't think that when it comes to ruling on good usage, that it shows really any intelligence and it shows absolutely no taste at all. That one word is better than another, and certain usages are better than others, and simply say so. Then if you want to say, look, the other is, they don't like the word colloquial and use demotic. Use popular, but not right. In other words, just set some standards.

You know, language is what defines us, as Mr. McDonald says. We are the words that we use. I think Americans probably use the English language worse than any people now using English language. Sloppy, messier, most imprecise. Out of this can come wars, wrong politics, any kind of things can come out of being too general and say, oh well, if enough of this agreed that this word means that case press. Well, what I admired about Mr. Kilburn was not so much what he said, but how he said it. Here's a man who is a defend structural linguistics, permissiveness, who speaks in an eminently correct rhetoric, who doesn't split any infinitives. I heard no vulgarisms, no strange locations. Everything is not only neat, but witty and a complete refutation of all of the things that the dictionary this third is supposed to stand for, so I would prefer to follow Mr. Kilburn's example and reject some of his reasoning.

Well, is it possible that what Mr. Kilburn was trying to propose as an acceptable position, one that would force us to at least give it a nodding agreement, is that Webster's third may have reduced the number of judgments it makes about what is acceptable usage, but that it's attempted to give a wider range of meanings which are currently being attributed to words in the society, and that in this regard it's a considerable advance over Webster's second. It's a good question to ask ourselves, for example, whether it would now be possible for any of us to rely exclusively on the second edition and to ignore the 100,000 new entries which have found their way into the third edition. Now a good part of those are obviously technical entries, scientific words, but also a good number of words and colloquial use of which we won't find in the dictionary

prepared the generation to go. Well, the anger is not over the number of words, but over the again, the use of the categories. Dwight, what are you doing? You're raising a hand. So it's going to suggest that Webster's third would be a very good supplement to Webster's second. I think Webster's second should be the main reliance, and Webster's third would be a very good supplement. If you have the money, it's been 4854. I must say it sounds like a symphony. Webster's third, Webster's second, played a Carnegie Hall tonight, and I suppose what we're trying to do is to set down some of the ground rules for Webster's fourth. Webster's fourth, I think they should be very careful of taking thematic novels like The Catcher and the Rye which is meant to be a long inner monologue of a 16-year-old boy and not then say the way a 16-year-old boy talks because that book sold a lot of copies, and it's a very skillful novel that that is correct usage, it isn't. And I'm still going to fight on the thing that the word human, Latin or not, is an adjective and not a noun. Well, the thing to me there was another assumption

in what Mr. Kilburn had to say, but it might be debated. I'd reject it, but it might be debated. And that is the notion that the way to get at the meanings of words is to find out how people, in fact, use words. Now, The Catch, and that is in the word people, which people. And whether you use simply a pile on it, the majority is generally wrong. Why do Mr. McDonald, who's somewhat older than I, that we both devoted our lives to trying to learn how to write English well? Now, we take a long time, you know, and I feel I've got a great much farther to go. Well, if it were all that easy, anyone could do it. The point is that having set standards for ourselves, we would like to see the dictionary. In other words, just simply say, look, holding call field in the catcher in the rise, demotic speech is not necessarily going to be correct. Now, this how long would a doctor continue to prescribe to a patient who didn't follow his prescriptions? Well, we have the new testament as a perfect example. Well, that was a perfectly good prescription, which no one has

ever paid any attention to. But you generally eliminate the doctor for that reason. No, you wouldn't burn the Bible because people were not Christian. The point about the doctor, if you went to a doctor who simply did what Dr. Galvan, the editors did, and simply told you, this is the latest things medical sciences discovered, make up your own mind. You wouldn't survive very long, and you wouldn't have that doctor very long. A dictionary is like a doctor. You can solve it when you're in doubt about something. What disturbs me about this is that it's bigger than all of us. I think this general abdication of authority, in the case of the dictionary, is reflected in an abdication of authority in many other areas. An architecture in art, in literature. This is, you have anti-navils. This is an anti-dictionary. It's a dictionary which doesn't do what I've always thought a dictionary is supposed to do, which is to be an authority. I wish you'd come in on that. You haven't come in. Not a authoritarian. No, they said a target of all the way authority. Yes, but not a

authoritarian. Well, who has got to be a authoritarian? Nobody would say authority. Well, that's a weasel, not a weasel, not a weasel. What should Socrates have said to that? They want to be both ways. They want to be scientific and also sell some copies of this dictionary. I'm sorry, but we'll have to bring this energetic discussion to a close. I want to thank the visiting members of the court, Martin Levin, of the Saturday Review, and playwright, novelist, Gore V. Dahl, for joining me this evening, and the advocates, Dwight McDonald, of the New Yorker, and Patrick Kilburn, of Union College. Thank you, and good night. This is NET, National Educational Television.